


Inkling

by philomel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-05
Updated: 2011-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-25 17:50:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philomel/pseuds/philomel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boys get branded.</p><p><span class="small">Spoilers: mildly for 3.12, "Jus In Bello."</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	Inkling

This wasn't what he'd expected.

Over the phone she'd sounded like a middle-aged biker chick, her voice low and raspy like a heavy smoker. He'd imagined someone with skin like tanned leather, tattoos stretched and faded like old brands.

But she wasn't that.

The fringe of her bangs fell into her eyes, and he couldn't stop looking at them: deep-dark, lined in a thick black that matched her hair. And starred. Black stars curved over the top of her cheekbone and up onto her brow. Her lips were a wet red, full and open. And the way she held her bag over one arm made her pull her shoulders back and drew attention to the skimpy black halter she—

Sam's head snapped up, and he smiled at her. Possibly a little too widely.

Something banged solidly into his shoulder and he stumbled to the side. Suddenly his view of the girl was obscured by thicket of spiky brown hair. Some would say over-gelled.

"Hi there!" Dean greeted cheerfully, one hand extended toward the girl with the other resting high on the door frame. Sam noticed the shameless flex ripple up Dean's arm and rolled his eyes. "Wanna come on in?"

She eyed both guys, then craned her neck to quickly survey the room behind them. She didn't particularly look like someone who wanted to come on in. Even though Sam had done his best to tidy up—shoving away rumpled clothes (some bloodstained) and gun parts and bullets (one bloodstained), tossing away greasy wrappers and wiping up stale crumbs (mostly from Dean's night stand), making both beds (one with an immovable lump of Dean still on it) with hospital corners and everything — the room still looked like a sleazy motel room. Gold foil patterns on the peeling teal wallpaper, water stains the size of Texas on the ceiling, stiff spots on the shag carpet that Sam could only hope came from some kid's chocolate and vanilla swirl ice cream cone. Antlers. Several pairs of molting antlers, one of them inexplicably capped with the glittery pink tassels from a girl's bike. Yeah, at best, it still gave the impression of a crack motel.

"It's okay." Dean flashed his teeth at her. "We don't bite."

She smirked at him and her hair swished as she shouldered past him and into the room. Dean's head nearly did a 180 as his gaze followed her in.

"Well, I mean, my brother here might not. But I—"

Sam smacked him upside the head. It stung his knuckles a bit, but otherwise felt good.

"It okay if I set up here?" she said, dropping her bag onto the round woodgrain table that wobbled under its weight.

"That's fine," Sam said, shutting the door and walking past Dean who was still rubbing the back of his head and shooting dirty looks at him. "Sorry about the place, by the way. It wasn't what we were expecting either. Last time we book a room over the internet." He smiled tightly around his little white lie.

"Hey, no problem." She waved him off, pulling plastic bags and a large metal box from her bag. "The people out in the parking lot probably thought I was just another hooker." She winked at Sam so subtly he almost didn't see it.

"N-noo." He scratched behind his ear and definitely did not look at her cleavage. Or her hips.

"No, I know, man. But you're gonna pay me up front before I do you, right?" She canted her hips and rested the heel of her hand on them. Sam couldn't help but notice the way her thumb skimmed the inside of her waistband. No, he couldn't.

"Yeah. Absolutely!" He swallowed around his words, and fumbled a hand into his pocket, extracting a thick fold of clipped cash.

"It's cool, dude. Thanks." She reached out and took the money and stuffed it into the back pocket of her impossibly tight black jeans. "I'm just busting on ya." She laughed. It was feather light and kind of squeaky, like old metal hinges or the backseat of the Impala when—

"Oof." Dean's hand thumped into Sam's chest.

"I like her, Sam," he said, patting Sam's chest a couple more times. "You picked up a good one."

"Damn straight." She grinned wide.

Dean grinned back, jacking a thumb toward Sam. "No one has phone book skills like my little brother here."

The girl pursed her lips into a mocking smile and licked them, then bent over the table and gathered some papers in her hands, tapping them sharply on the top. "Okay, just need you to sign this." She handed one sheet to Dean. "And this." She handed another to Sam. She passed a pen to both and waited to collect them, arms crossed like a school teacher.

"Cool. You boys ready then?" She looked down at the paper Sam handed her. "Um, Malcolm... Young." Her eyes skirted up to Sam's, then back down as she shuffled the papers. "And Angus? Young." Incredulous might have been the best way to describe the look on her face. If one was being generous.

Sam expected her to walk right out the door. But she didn't question them. Still, he made a mental note to stop letting Dean pick their aliases.

"This is the design, right?"

Sam and Dean both moved forward, hovering over the transfer. Sam's first and second fingers slid over the corner of the translucent paper, sliding off in an arc that followed the curve of the deep blue image imprinted on it. "That's exactly it," he said, exhaling like he hadn't been sure it would be.

"So, like, you guys are Wiccans or pagans or something, I'm guessing?" she said, twisting her hair loosely at the back of her neck, locks spiking out at all angles, one clinging to her neck like it was mimicking the leafy stems of her tattoo there.

"Nope." Dean shook his head. "Just your average Satan worshippers." He held her stare.

"No way, dude." She snapped an elastic band around her gathered hair. "Satan worshippers would have gotten a better room."

They laughed; Sam may have laughed a little too loudly.

"So, who's up first?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm definitely up," Dean said, and Sam cringed.

"Where's it going?"

"Right here." Dean slapped his hand over the left side of his chest. "Right over the heart."

"Nice." She bobbed her head like she was keeping the beat to some rock tune only she could hear. "Shirt off then."

"Yes ma'am!"

Sam slumped into a chair on the other side of the table and watched Dean scramble out of his shirt like an overexcited puppy. Or an overexcited something... less... innocent.

Dean's hand rested on his stomach, and he brushed his thumb over the bare skin there. "Where do you want me?"

"Bed," she said matter-of-factly.

Dean started to grin.

She said, "It's best if you lie down. Your skin's less saggy and easier to work with that way."

"My skin's not s—" Dean began to protest, but fell back onto the bed anyway, bouncing and shimmying around until the covers rumpled at his sides like he was making a nest. He laced his hands behind his head.

The girl stood over him, holding a small plastic box. "Can you put your arms at your side for me?"

"Sweetheart, I can do anything for you."

"I bet you think you could."

They grinned at each other. Sam shifted in his seat.

"All right, I’m just gonna shave you first," she said, opening the box.

"You... _what_?” Dean sputtered, and Sam bit the inside of his cheek.

"Standard procedure, dude," she reassured Dean. "Although you’re pretty smooth already."

Dean puffed out his chest. "Like a dolphin."

The girl turned around, grabbing a bottle of water from the table, and arched an eyebrow at Sam, who immediately covered his mouth with his hand.

When she finished, Dean surveyed the newly shorn spot (unsurprisingly indistinguishable from the un-shorn spots) on his chest, flicked his gaze back up to her and said, "So, now that you’re done with that, I was thinking of a Brazilian."

She coughed. "Only if you’re getting a tattoo there too."

Dean ran his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip. "Maybe next time."

"Uh huh," she said bemusedly, and turned again, chewing on her lip as she did so, and pulled a sheet of paper from the table. She laid the transfer on Dean's bare chest, smoothing it with long fingers, each one marked with simple letters and symbols. Sam recognized the pentagram within a heart. A heartagram. Dean would dig that — Sam remembered a doodle of something just like it on the cover of Dean's otherwise empty high school notebook, alongside the Blue Öyster Cult symbol and a thick, jagged scrawl of "Zeppelin Rules." With lightning bolts.

"Do you wanna check it in the mirror?" she asked, when she peeled it back.

Dean glanced down at his chest. "Naw, that looks good. I trust ya."

"You do, do you?" Sam could practically hear the wink in her voice, and he was definitely not jealous about it.

She swung around and plucked a pair of gloves from her bag. The latex rolled over her fingers, obscuring but not completely hiding the ink below its murky off-white. She looked up and caught Sam's eye. "Ribbed, for my pleasure," she said, rolling the end of a glove over her wrist, and Sam's face twitched into a lopsided smile. But he certainly did not blush. He watched her pull the needle from its plastic wrap and busy herself with switches as the metal box on the table whirred to life. Holding the needle like a pen in one hand, she grabbed a chair with the other and pulled it over to the bed, straddling it backwards. Her mostly bare back curled, stretching, drawing Sam's eyes to the flowing script below her neck, the thick black hair of a lady's portrait on one shoulder, more black lines and gray shades wrapping around her side and dipping down past her pants, which rode down her hips the more she leaned forward. The arch of her spine rose pale and un-inked in the middle. Sam absently drew a line down the center of the machine, feeling it hum into his finger.

"Is it your first time?" she asked.

Dean scoffed, lips quirking, then paused. "Well...." Sam saw his Adam's apple bob in his throat, and grinned. "Yeah, I suppose it is." Dean dipped his chin and looked up at her through his eyelashes. "Be gentle?"

Only Dean could make that sound dirty.

"I can't say it won't hurt," she said, crooking her elbow and leaning forward. "But. You might like that." Dean smiled wickedly. And then his face froze. He didn't flinch. He didn't make a sound. But Sam knew the exact moment the needle hit Dean's skin by how tight his face had become. Dean was trying so hard not to grimace. Sam was trying so hard not to laugh.

"How is it?" Sam called out, doing nothing to disguise the glee in his voice.

"It kind of... tickles." Dean beamed up into the girl's face.

"Really." Sam couldn't help it.

"Yes." Dean shot an eyebrow up at him. "Really." He turned back toward her, flashing an over-bright smile again.

Oh, this was too much fun.

But it was also over too quickly. Before Sam had a chance to really relish Dean's discomfort, the girl was wiping him off and telling him he was done.

"What, so soon?" Dean said, stretching, then prodding cautiously around the reddened flesh after she'd turned her back.

"You're next," she said. And Sam looked up to see her patting the space on the bed where Dean had just been.

"Awesome!" Dean barked out, from the bathroom, where he'd shuffled off to check out his new mark.

"You like?" she called back.

Dean poked his head around the corner, looking prouder than a peacock. "It is so rock and roll."

She grinned and nodded, her tongue poking out between her front teeth.

"It's not rock and roll, D- _Angus_. It's protection." Sam couldn't help it; correcting his brother was like a reflex at this point.

"Whatever, dude," Dean said, already back at the mirror. Probably flexing.

Knocking at the door frame first, the girl ducked into the bathroom. As he stood hovering over the bed, Sam heard a rush of tap water followed by the rip of adhesive tape and the murmuring of their voices, unintelligible from the other room.

"Protection, huh?" She said when she reemerged, bouncing the adhesive roll in the palm of her hand.

He twisted the hem of his t-shirt. "Yeah."

"From what?"

"From, uh." He looked down at his hands in his shirt, let go and started pulling his arm through the sleeve instead. "From... negative energy, you could say." He grabbed onto the back of his collar and pulled the shirt the rest of the way off. His hair fell in his face and he let it shadow him as he tucked his chin into his neck and glanced backward, dipping into the bed and lowering himself tentatively.

He held his breath as she rubbed her wetted fingers over his chest, smeared shaving gel over that and, bending so low over him that her bangs grazed his chin and neck, began gliding the blade over his skin.

"‘Negative energy’?" she asked, making a final swipe with the blade. "What, like a ‘bad breakup’ negative energy or general ‘life sucks’ negative energy? Or ‘something so big you’re on the run and that’s why you’re holed up in this shitty motel room’ negative energy?"

Sam’s laugh was a breathless one. "Yeah, we could use some protection from the negative energy of these antlers." He motioned toward the set above the bed, nailed to a wooden plaque with a gold plate into which was engraved the name  
‘Betty Sue.’

"I don’t know, man." She shook her head. "You might need a couple more tattoos to ward off that shit," she said, and he had to remind himself what she was responding to, because her hands were positioning the transfer paper over his chest, smoothing it firmly, fingers accidentally brushing his nipple.

He didn't just hiss.

"Your first time too?" She smiled gently, but Sam caught the glint in her eye, belying the tease in her words.

"Heh. Two for the price of one?" He glinted right back.

"Well... two for the price of two, actually," she said and smacked her back pocket. Which did not affect Sam in any way, shape or form.

But he did jump a little when he heard the pop and fizz of an aluminum can being opened.

"Ah, just in time," Dean said, settling down into the other bed, with the pillows tugged free of the cover and propped behind his back. Still shirtless, he rested the can of beer on his stomach and stared over at the two of them like his favorite show was about to begin. Voyeur.

By the time Sam looked back, the needle was millimeters from his skin. It seemed like it hovered there forever, long enough for him to contemplate maybe not getting a tattoo, maybe settling for permanent marker instead. He'd only have to reapply it once in a while. But then, what if it rubbed off at the wrong time, opening the door for some demon to get all up in him again? A girl demon, a boy demon. It wasn't as good as it sounded. It made him feel dirty and violated. And that wasn't as good as it sounded either. He looked up into her eyes which, shaded under her bangs, were almost black and he thought, well, maybe this kind of possession he could be okay with.

And that's when he looked down and saw the first line of the pentacle already etched into his skin.

"Huh." He exhaled a soft puff of air, transfixed by the movement of the needle, jittering quietly but guided gracefully with each fluid stroke of her hand.

"Not so bad then?" She glanced up quickly, offering a soft smile.

"No," Sam said, sounding surprised himself. "It kind of... pinches... a _little_. Like right there." He nodded his head to indicate the needle passing closer to the center of his chest, where the muscle sloped downward, close to his sternum. "But only for a moment."

"See." Her face lit up and she leaned in, curling her wrist to blacken in the area around the circle. "You're already an old pro at this." He felt the warmth of her arm on him, and its heat seemed to sink right into his stomach.

"It kind of... feels good." He said the last part so quickly the words almost slurred together. It seemed strange to admit it, but sounded true when he did.

"Yeah?" She smiled so widely a tendril of hair caught in the crook of her mouth. She nudged it away with the tip of her tongue, shaking her head a little. "I definitely think it’s worth the pain. I mean, the way I see it, tattoos are scars, like... scars we actually choose, though, y'know?" She leaned in even closer, her skin sticking to his in places. Her eyes focused on the ink as it flowed out of her needle, precise and deft. "Like most scars tell a story. But these are _our_ stories. Not just some random shit brought on you. You get to tell your own story." She lifted up the needle and patted alongside the fresh corona of ink. "Right here. Chapter one." She sat back. "All finished."

Sam looked down at the perfect lines of glistening black right there on his skin. A buzz thrummed below the surface, the memory of the needle still palpable. Tiny beads of blood dotted over the tattoo. It felt like a living thing.

"Chapter two: he gets My Little Pony tattooed on his ass." And, just on cue, Dean spoiled Sam's reverie.

"Yeah? You're gonna get a matching pair of those too?" She held the now-quiet needle in her hand and tipped it toward Dean, eyes sparking.

Dean grinned around the lip of his beer and muttered something indecipherable.

Sam felt a soft brush of her hand on his arm, fingers coasting over him, doing barely more than rustling the hairs. Still, the sensation prickled after her hand receded, a quiet electric current running through him. Her back was turned when he looked up. He sat up and swung his legs around the edge of the bed and stood up. Hunching his shoulders and plunging his hands into his pockets, he watched her drop the gloves and needle in the waste basket and put away her kit. The string of her halter tie swayed lightly against her back.

"Thank you," he said.

"Don't mention it," she said, automatic, like she'd said it a thousand times before. And surely she had. Then she reached up to clean his tattoo, pressing lightly, mindful of the sore flesh. He looked down at the wet paper towel in her hand — the red speckling the white, it looked like she'd been tending to a wound. He supposed she had been. The tattoo disappeared under a square of gauze, and he looked up just as she laid down the last strip of tape, her finger stroking it snugly against his skin. Her chin tipped up. Her eyes were dark and wide, not quite questioning but not quite making a statement either. It looked like a challenge. His head tipped down, and he opened his mouth to—

And Dean coughed. Sam was pretty sure it was meant to goad him on. But suddenly the room seemed larger and brighter than it had been a minute ago, and she was farther away, scooping her bag under her arm and hoisting it over her shoulder, her arm folding over like a painted fan, a scene shut tight against her. She slid a paper onto the tabletop, recited some instructions about cleaning and ointment and, really, he should be paying attention, but all he could take in was the flutter of her fingers as she tucked the hair behind her ears and how he didn’t really know what each letter and symbol on them meant, besides the heartagram and the heart. And, really, did he know what those meant, what they meant for her? He hadn’t asked, but now he wanted to, wanted to know how to read her skin, all the stories that covered it. If he’d had a tattoo for everything that marked his life, would he be covered like her as well? Would the tattoos accumulate, overlapping until his body was nothing but a long shadow of black ink? Or would his life be summed up in a one note story, like this pentacle on his chest? Repeating the single word: protect.

Some stories just couldn’t be told.

He walked her to the door. His fingertips rested over the round of the doorknob, slipping.

"I just... I was wondering—" He turned back into the room as the door creaked open behind him. "About the stars?"

Fingers smoothed over her eyebrow as she breathed out a soundless laugh. "Oh, uh, that’s my favorite song." She tapped along her temple. "‘Starry Eyes.’"

"Mötely Crüe!" Dean pointed at her, all pleased, like he was watching a game show and had just gotten the question right.

"You know it,” she said.

Any other time, Dean would have her number by now. Or this would be the time he’d ask. Or she’d offer. Sam wondered why this time was different. And he wondered why, in all the ways he’d learned to emulate his brother, he couldn’t follow Dean’s example and ask a simple question of a girl. A girl who was exactly Dean’s type, not Sam’s. A girl who they’d likely never see again.

She was already halfway out the door.

"Call me the next time you're in town. I'm sure you'll have plenty of new stories to tell by then." She nodded her head toward Dean, and he nodded back.

Sam just stood there, watching her go. His eyes focused on the "vida" in the center of her back, his blood beating under his skin, over his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> • Beta: raynemaiden.
> 
> • OFC imagined as or very similar to real-life tattoo artist [Kat Von D](http://pics.livejournal.com/philomel/pic/00002aeg/).


End file.
